


Smile

by Kitsu



Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Angst, M/M, dark themes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-07-09
Updated: 2008-07-09
Packaged: 2018-05-15 08:44:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5779180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kitsu/pseuds/Kitsu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Introspective from Tseng’s point of view, about the aftermath of the incident at the Temple of the Ancients, and what the future might bring.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Smile

**Author's Note:**

> I blame my fever. Yes. And reading to much Shakespeare. Also, I kinda feel like a walking, talking thesaurus now.

Sitting across my lap, facing me, your fingers start working on the tiny, white mother-of-pearl buttons that’s holding the front of my linen shirt closed. I have expensive tastes for someone in my kind of profession, I know. Wearing white seems like a rather bad idea, doesn’t it? Somehow it feels like it’s against the rules; and thus rather obscene. Death should not come around in a perfectly pressed dark blue business-suit, with the sleeves rolled up to spare it the worst of the blood-splatter. But I do. I give my targets the last grace of letting them see Death in the eye. To die honourably.  
  
Blood tarnishes so easily, but ShinRa pays more than well enough for me to hire someone to remove the stains. At least the tangible ones, the material ones. I turn in my sullied laundry at the company dry-cleaners, and it comes back as pristine as ever. The other stains, those gone unnoticed by anyone but those of the trade; they are the difficult ones. They linger as dark blemishes on your soul, and no matter how hard you scrub, how much you try to forget, how much you drink, they never fade. For a short moment my gaze lingers at my own tainted hands, almost seeing the crimson streaks left where someone’s life drained away between my fingers; their death at my hands. No, the stigma of a killer never completely washes off. Some things one can not forget and some scars never fully heal. So a killer keeps the company of other killers, executioner stays with executioner.  
  
Pushing white fabric aside, you reveal my most pronounced scar, my deepest taint. The one that nearly stole me away from you. The ragged, pale ridges where the sword of the just avenger, the raving lunatic tore through me with a vengeance in it's quest for truth, for an explanation. For reason.  
  
I don't, and neither should you, ever blame the winged one for that particular transgression. I tempted death by confronting too strong a opponent for what I envisioned a just cause; trying to protect the few people close to my heart. I nearly failed that gambit; only Lady Luck's sheer insistence on thwarting Death seem to have left me with my life intact. The General only acted on instincts left intrinsic to him by a life underpinned by treason and lies, subterfuge and betrayal. His mind had given in to the insanity of his mother, folding under the weight of their combined diablerie, under the weight of an otherworldly being crashing through his mental shields.  
  
No, I do not blame him. He was a victim of circumstances just as much as me. I just had Crisis-be-damned better luck than him. Really, I blame no-one but myself. Instead I thank the Lady every day for having kept a vigil eye on me.  
  
The scar he left behind, my memento mori and the vestige of my iniquity have slowly been turned into a badge of life. The healed skin proves that I traveled to the gates of the afterlife and back. I returned from the jaws of whatever lies beyond this life. I returned for you. To you. If someone ever tries taking you away from me again, I, myself will quicken their journey towards the afterlife.  
  
Hair the colour of fire cascade over your shoulders as you lean in closer, placing a rough kiss on my lips.  
  
"Don'cha ever do that to me again. If you go and die on me, I will hunt you down and kill you **again** myself. I swear, yo." Your words caress my neck, soft wisps of breath stirring stray strands of hair clinging to my damp skin.  
  
I've been told that for months and months you watched over me, while I was only a shadow of a man, hospitalized in some cold, clinical ShinRa facility. Several weeks are completely wiped from my memory, nothing but blank space left. Then there were occasional glints of light, random fragments of conversations, and always that incarnadine hair. No, not always. That is a lie, you did have your job to do. But too often for someone playing the role of ‘friend’.  
  
However you may be hurting though, nothing interferes with duty. I remember that some days your phone would chime, short messages were barked, orders were received. A wry smile was always plastered on your face when you had to leave me alone under the glaring hospital lighting, but you always squeezed my hand gently as you left.  
  
Oh, you can deal with hardships, but it always takes on different forms. Sometimes you laugh it away, a smile as bright as Bahamut’s flares brightening up your face. Other times you try to drink the pain away. Then I will invariably find you drunk off your feet in some back-alley, sobbing like the street urchin you were the day we first met. Oh, you never shed tears in front of anyone but me; as I no-one but you. It is not appropriate for a Turk to weep in public. We are expected to be cold-blooded, saturnine drones. You always **did** fail that part of the job-description miserably, smiles and scowls equally common, depending on the day and the mission. The ‘clean up’ missions never sat right with you, I think. I see it in your eyes, the doubt about whether or not what we are doing is something you can live with.  
  
I see the fear too. There are new lines around your eyes, eyes older apparent than they should be. I fear too. I fear that we are headed down a road of no return, guided by forces stronger than us, mightier far than us two lost souls. We might not have a saying in where this torrent will take us. But the need for reassurance burn in your bright blue eyes.  
  
"I won’t leave you. Where you go I will follow.” My hands settle your hips, fingers press down, nails dig slightly into skin. You sigh, and move against my hold, grinding down on me. The sensation sends a shiver down my spine. You know our new routine by now, and your nails scrape along the ragged skin on my abdomen, none too gently.  
  
Pain. Pain tells me I'm alive, tells me that I can feel again. That I never really stopped feeling in the first place. Pain is a constant in our line of work; bruised ribs, broken bones, wounds cut deep. Pleasure is fleeting, but what joy those few passing, evanescent moments bring. Combined with the pain, the pleasure may even last for a bit longer, twined together as they are. The physical memory of the pain laces with the mental memory of pleasure, and it lasts a fragment of a lifetime longer. It grounds the pleasure, tells me that I should enjoy it for as long as it lasts. For it will eventually disappear, and then only the pain and the emptiness will remain. Everything seeks to reverts to it's natural state in the end.  
  
But for as long as you look at me like that, yes, just like that, the pain is irrelevant, and the moment we’re in right now appears amaranthine.  
  
Never again will I leave you behind, no matter where this deluge they call fate sweeps us.  
  
Never again, Reno, will I be the reason for such distress in your eyes. You deserve better, so I will be careful not to die before old age wrestles the last, simpering breath from me.  
  
I need you to smile like that for me. Always.  
  
~~~~End~~~~


End file.
